Automotive, truck, RV, motorcycle and boat retailers have long been automated using a more traditional form of business software based on legacy databases and their fourth generation software generation tools. Although some dealership management systems use web browsers to display stored or aggregated data from other systems, it is a normally a read-only process for the browser. Some legacy systems are moving towards using web servers to hold, clean, and transmit data, but these applications still use their legacy database to process the data and then temporary tables to hold the data that the browser then displays.
This invention uses Web 2.0 technology and a browser to directly query the relational database. This browser is the application for this invention instead of just a user interface for a legacy application. It uses scripting technology to process the data requests and the speed of the client and server side scripts greatly improves the response time of the displays back the user. In addition this invention uses web application tools and relational databases.
The Internet has spawned many different sites using this open source software that enable consumers to search for vehicles and go through the process of communicating with the dealerships via a lead generation system. For example, www.cars.com is a successful site that enables users to research a vehicle, and then search for a vehicle. When the vehicle is found, then the user can make contact with a dealer by entering their user information and desired vehicle information. This data is sent via a lead generation system or emailed to the dealership.
Current dealership management systems have many shortcomings when it comes to integration with the lead generation system and online marketing websites. First, the dealership management software rarely has an import routine. Second, the database format is incompatible with the databases used in web-based sites like cars.com, making “live” integration almost impossible. Third, the development tools are very different, making it hard for the IT departments in dealerships to maintain the old legacy dealership management systems while at the same time keeping up-to-date with the latest Internet tools for consumer marketing sites. Fourth, there are more tools created every year to help dealerships market and manage their inventories for sale and interact with customers. Examples of these tools are RFID tags that enable the dealership to find the location of vehicle inventory and websites that allow consumers to make their own service appointments. These third party products are being developed in web-based tools that make integration with legacy dealership management systems difficult and often require double entry of data by the users.
With the current dealership management systems being limited in their ability to interface with the online websites that market vehicles to the consumers and their lead generation software, there is a need for a dealership management system that uses the same development tools as consumer websites, more open to query the records, and browser-based in its design to enable live integration with websites, lead generation software, and other third party tools created to manage a retail dealership's operation. This invention is novel because it uses tools that were intended to create websites (PHP stands for “personal home page”) to develop a dealership management system.
The previous generation of web tool would have made this invention almost impossible. The objective of that generation of the Internet was to provide an attractive read-only web site for shoppers. With the recent evolution of the Internet from read-only to Web 2.0, this enables users to not only read but to easily write to applications, thus providing a new opportunity to invent a rich Internet application that replaces the legacy database systems managing dealerships.